Giving Thanks In All Things

Whenever you undertake a journey, it is always a welcomed time when you can stop and rest.

Hiking in the mountains and after a couple of hours, stopping by a cold stream, taking off your boots and soaking your tired feet in the water. Do you know that feeling?

After a long day of traveling, either by car or by plane, and you get to sit down in a comfortable chair and take your shoes off and stretch your toes. Do you know that feeling?

After a whole day sitting at your desk, with only walks to the coffee pot and restroom, and you fight your way through the traffic and sig alerts, and you get to sit down to a clean house and prop your feet up and take a sip of a very cold beverage. Do you know that feeling?

That feeling is the feeling of thanksgiving that I think God wants us to enjoy. It is created in us, it is part of the men and women God made us to be.

That’s why very early on in the Ten Commandments, God says, “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” God tells us that we should work six days and then take one full day for Sabbath Rest.

Sabbath Rest includes worship, meditating on God’s Word, talking to God – alone and with others – and thanksgiving!

Giving thanks is sometimes not what we want to do. I know many people who do not feel much like giving thanks because they don’t have a whole lot to be thankful for because of the economic problems our country faces, or because they can’t find a job, or that they have to move because they can’t afford their mortgage payments, or because they are dealing with a loved one’s illness or death.

These are all real problems, real situations, that real people are facing today. How in the world can anyone be expected to give thanks?

It can be done. Paul writes that we are “rejoice always” and, in everything give thanks.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thess. 5:18

Why? Because no matter what we have or don’t have, no matter what happens to us or doesn’t happen to us, no matter where we are or where we are not – this one thing remains true: we are sons and daughters of God the Father Almighty. We are made that way through the forgiveness of our sins, purchased and won for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.